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Pub and shop owners in the county have urged people to stop giving off about Alexa after it emerged that over 1000 households in the county returned their Amazon Echo devices due to its inability to understand locals and vice versa.

In one extreme example, a man in his 40s from Eskra was witnessed kicking the device around his garden at 3pm on Christmas Day after it failed to understand “Alex, play the one ‘Mon Boy Light Thon Fire’ by that band The Durs” after 200 requests to do so.

Electronics expert Roger McGinnity from Omagh offered advice for locals who have yet to return their device:

“Alexa isn’t programmed to understand the subtleties of the Tyrone dialect. Asking it ‘is it coul the day?’ will confused the system and result in annoyance on both sides. My advice is to think of what you want to ask and have a dictionary nearby and mouth out the words that way. It’s still a useful device.”

The Amazon data team revealed that the most asked questions to Alexa in the county on Christmas Day were: ‘Alexa, will Trone win the All-Ireland the year?’ and ‘Alexa, are the cops nearby atall?’

Meanwhile a 43-year old man from Ardboe has proposed to the machine, surrounded by family and friends. Although Alexa was non-committal, a service will go ahead on New Year’s Eve, the first of its kind in the county.